Sunday, April 17, 2011

I'm not sure the Rescue Remedy is doing much. Minnie has managed to fool me by doing very little of her water-drinking from actual bowls, relying instead on her bountiful cuteness to get drinks from the sink. Or maybe she does drink from the bowl when I'm not looking--after all, I don't keep an eye on her 24 hours a day. Anyway, I now have photographic proof that our two little fuzzballs, Minnie and Sammi, can get along when they try. I snuck this shot through the French doors:

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Kitty nerves

Every time we think the cats might be getting used to--or at least tolerant of--each other, we are promptly disabused of that notion by Sammi lying in wait for Minnie behind a corner or Minnie skulking around the house trying to avoid Sammi. Sammi just wants to play with Minnie (we think), and her favorite game happens to be "chase". Minnie, however, views the sight of a large cat bounding in her direction with alarm and thinks it's a real attack. "What we have here is...failure to communicate." Cue hissing and growling and fleeing. Fortunately, there's been only one occasion of blood-letting--when Minnie turned up with a hole in her backside made by a suspiciously Sammi-like claw.

We were still willing to wait and let the cats sort it out for themselves. But I found a spot on the wall by Minnie's cat tree Friday evening that changed our minds: Minnie had sprayed the wall. Yep, little girl-cat Minnie.

I'd seen her do that before in the backyard of my previous house; that was a territory-marking thing. And once she sprayed a bag of trash I'd left in the kitchen overnight; I don't remember what was going on at the time that would have made her uptight--maybe her sensitive nose just didn't like the smell. But apart from the one time in the kitchen, she's never sprayed inside the house.

OK, time for Mom to do something about the situation! So I ordered a bottle of Rescue Remedy drops--kitty valium--and we'll just hope they help. I've tried the stuff before, when my little orange feral Leo came to live inside and Minnie freaked about that, but it didn't seem to do much. I may not have used it right, though, or as diligently as I should have. I'll try to do better this time, starting with putting drops in every bowl of water in the house (we have them in both bedrooms, the living room, and at their feeding station in the kitchen). Any other suggestions are most welcome!

People nerves

My workplace has undergone another upheaval recently. We're now working directly under the Provost, and several of the heads of the stupid-decision-making hydra that has passed for our leadership have been lopped off via announcements of resignation and retirement. The timing of these announcements follows so quickly on the heels of a recent meeting announcing and (mostly) explaining our upcoming transition that we lesser peons (who actually do the work around here, no matter which lunatic is in charge) suspect that the resigning/retiring management-types were "encouraged" to do so by the Provost. At least one resignee (my immediate boss) doesn't have another job lined up; in this economic climate, that's pretty telling.

I'm of two minds about these developments. On the one hand, I (and the rest of my fellow peons) are delighted that our immediate boss is removing herself from the equation, since she's a pain in the ass in many ways, given to snap decisions, holding grudges, and hysterical, illogical, overblown tirades over what are really rather small problems. And we're pretty dang happy about one retiree in particular, since she and her good buddy in Marketing have been, for some ridiculous reason, a major source of stupid decisions in the past several years, decisions that have contributed to flushing our business down the crapper. Her Marketing buddy remains unscathed so far, but hope springs eternal. :) If nothing else, said buddy is now isolated and, presumably, powerless.

On the other hand, we peons are understandably a little nervous about our own continued employment. Judging from the Proctor's stated attitude toward our college (which is positive), we're almost certain the college itself will survive and grow, and since they'll need folks to do the work, I think all the people who do actually work (including me) will be OK. But it's the uncertainty evidenced by "almost certain" and "I think" in that last sentence that has me a wee bit stressed--that, and the fact that we won't really know how the state budget cuts will affect us until around June. But all I can do is keep working hard, tout my multiplicity of skills to those now in charge, and hope for the best.